By Taylor Herman​The daunting question of how one will pay for college is enough to make you want to curl up in your bed with the covers over your head and stay there with a carton of ice cream until you’ve cried all your problems away, or maybe that’s just me. This excruciating process of filling out application after application and then being forced to sit and wait for answers that sometimes never come, should be comparable to a type of mind-game torture tactic that can leave students feeling helpless. Why does a desire to better one’s life have to result in them being a victim of massive debt for the rest of their life? Is it wrong for people of less financial privilege to crave an opportunity to make their future brighter? The more I become overwhelmed by numbers being thrown in my face everyday, the answer seems to move closer and closer to yes. As someone who grew up in a single parent household that got by from paycheck to paycheck I never really pictured myself as someone who would go off to a big university and do the “full college experience”. However, as I got older, the idea of leaving home to get my degree became very appealing. My search of possibilities ended up with me developing a list of five schools to tour. Every university I saw was amazing in its own way, but nothing came close to giving me the excitement that Washington State gave me. WSU not only has the two degrees I plan to pursue and an exciting campus with outstanding faculty, they also have opportunities to travel, earn top internships, and a highly diverse group of students. Being there felt like paradise. Nothing there felt like it wasn’t perfect for me––that is until I saw the price tag.Let me begin by saying that the concept of “out-of-state tuition” is the absolute dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Why should I be penalized thousands of dollars only because I wasn’t raised in the state with the college that best fit me? Yes I know it’s because of taxes, and sure it makes sense for an increase of maybe $1,000-$3,000 but it is ridiculous that states are allowed to increase the amount by $10,000-$20,000 a year! College is about exploring new things, becoming cultured, and seeing what the world has to offer. This can’t be achieved in a very high degree if kids are forced to stay home another four years because it’s all they can afford. Also what if the state you’re born in doesn’t offer many opportunities to enter the career field you desire. Are you supposed to just move away on your own with a mountain of debt and compete for jobs against students that have completed internships and built relationships through their college’s networking? Yeah let me know how that works out.According to just about everyone, my senior year is supposed to be one of the best years of my life, but I’m only a couple of months into it and haven’t been able to find exactly where the fun fits in. In order to be an appealing candidate and stand out in the highly competitive arena of scholarship applications, students are expected to balance a thousand things at once. We must take upper level classes all while trying to maintain the 4.0 GPA that’s necessary to stand out academically. However, everyone knows good grades and challenging course aren’t enough. Students must also figure out how to juggle sports, a job, clubs, finding opportunities to volunteer and show that they’re a valuable part of society, but all of that still doesn’t seem like enough. Why does our education system have to put so much pressure on students to be perfect? Should a lack of one aspect on an application be the reason that an outstanding student is overlooked? As I sit here in my bed crying my worries away, my supposedly amazing senior year is ticking away along with my that innocent perspective that in the end everything will work out. I have that disconcerting feeling in my stomach that I’ll come up short in the end. It makes one wonder if it is all really worth it, or if there’s a better way for this process to occur? Until someone comes up with a solution, I’ll be stuck here eating, crying and praying that my numbers will be selected in the next lottery.